South Shore native Stacy Poitras carves out a TV career

As a kid growing up in Plymouth, Stacy Poitras could hardly have predicted he’d someday be on television — wielding a chain saw.

But as the star of CMT’s noisy new reality show, “Chainsaw Gang,” that’s what Poitras is doing. On the show, which airs on Saturday, the South Shore native (and former School of the Museum of Fine Arts student) leads a ragtag crew of the country’s premiere chain saw artists.

With the precision of surgeons, they sculpt figures from wood, all the while being careful not to kill themselves. (Poitras once had the blade of a saw snap and whiplash around his waist “like a bullwhip with nails.”)

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The owner of a Malibu-based company called Deadwood Tree Sculptures, Poitras told us his aptitude for art was evident early on. In second grade, he says, he drew a picture of a dinosaur that caught the eye of a classmate.

“The kid said he’d give me his lunch money for it, which back then was 25 cents,” says Poitras, 45.

Fast forward several years. He was in Brockton one day and watched a guy use a chain saw to transform a log into a bear. Poitras was hooked. Today, his detailed creations sell for as much as $20,000.

When he’s not busy with the show, Poitras is planning his wedding to actress/director Alison Eastwood, daughter of “Dirty Harry” himself, Clint Eastwood.

“I asked him for her hand in marriage, and he just glared at me and said, ‘You’re gonna need to take that up with her,’ ” Poitras says. “I asked if that was a yes or no, and he said, ‘That’s a yes, son.’ ”